Rick Santorum, says “suffering is good”

At a town hall meeting in Iowa (November 2011), Santorum decried government efforts to protect children from economic suffering. He said: “If you’re a Christian, suffering is part of life, and it’s not a bad thing. It’s an essential thing.”

“Suffering, if you’re a Christian, suffering is a part of life. And it’s not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life … There are all different ways to suffer. One way to suffer is through lack of food and shelter and there’s another way to suffer which is lack of dignity and hope and there’s all sorts of ways that people suffer and it’s not just tangible, it’s also intangible and we have to consider both.”

WIKI: Redemptive suffering is the Roman Catholic belief that human suffering, when accepted and offered up in union with the Passion of Jesus, can remit the just punishment for one’s sins or for the sins of another. Like an indulgence, redemptive suffering does not gain the individual forgiveness for their sin; forgiveness results from God’s grace, freely given through Christ, which cannot be earned. After one’s sins are forgiven, the individual’s suffering can reduce the penalty due for sin.

Rick Santorum is the poster boy for all things ‘HATE’. As president, Santorum would make sure that Americans that do not ‘toe the line’ to his twisted idea of freedom, are punished. America would become the Theocratic Guantanamo of the world. Santorum represents a Very Vocal Minority that want to take revenge on American Social Culture. Santorum’s audience wants to turn America into a social conservative primitive religious theocracy, where religious freedom means the entire country must do it their way only … or else. Rick Santorum is a one man Hate Group!

How can the average American identify with the hateful rhetoric being spewed by a US Presidential candidate? In a world where Rick Santorum is leader of the world’s most powerful military and recovering economy, do you think that you are safe? The likes and dislikes Rick Santorum has espoused are blindingly clear, if you do not fit into his ideal image of a Tea Party Christian, you will be punished, because, “suffering is good”.

Former senator Rick Santorum earned the sobriquet “the believer” during his time in Washington. A staunch Catholic, he made cultural conservative issues his personal crusade, frequently giving impassioned speeches on behalf of the unborn and leading the effort to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Though self-effacing and affable in private, on the Senate floor he became a scourge in the hands of an angry God.

With Republican presidential front-runner Rick Santorum, it’s hard to decide what is more alarming, his know-nothingism or his dishonesty. In recent days, he has put on displays of both, decrying President Barack Obama’s advocacy for higher learning and distorting John F. Kennedy’s 1960 appeal for religious tolerance.

Like many on the Right, Santorum also selectively disregards the founding principles of the United States, which include government neutrality on religion. In one speech, Santorum said he “almost threw up” when reading Kennedy’s reiteration of that principle more than a half century ago when JFK was seeking to become the first Catholic president.

For all his supposed authenticity, Rick Santorum is not what he seems. Beneath that sweater vest beats the heart of a calculating and increasingly desperate politician who has gone beyond pandering all the way to shameless demagoguery.That’s the charitableview. The uncharitable take on Santorum’s incendiary rhetoric is that he actually believes this stuff. Either way, it’s time for Republican voters to end his little electoral adventure and send him back to the cosseted life of a Washington influence-peddler.

“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob. There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.” … even Santorum went to college and earned advanced degrees in law and business, and look how he turned out! What Santorum was obliquely referring to is his sense that today’s college and university campuses are hotbeds of socialism and liberal theology.

Barack Obama = ~Rick Santorum, claims that President Obama deserves no credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and that 9/11 families should be angry because he order him killed. I’m assuming that Santorum credits Bush which is laughable.

Gays = ~Rick Santorum, compares homosexuality to bestiality, and saying that we don’t have the right to have consensual sex. He’s also saying we don’t have the right to privacy. ~Rick Santorum, compares homosexuality to being black. ~Rick Santorum, compares his fight against homosexuality to the war against terror. ~Rick Santorum, compares legalizing same-sex marriage to the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Liberals = ~Rick Santorum, claims liberals hate Western civilization despite the fact that Republicans have been tearing it apart for decades. ~Rick Santorum, claims liberals hate Western civilization despite the fact that Republicans have been tearing it apart for decades.

Women’s Rights = ~Rick Santorum, accuses the left of being bullies despite the fact that he agrees with those who want to execute gays and women who have abortions. AND ~Rick Santorum, declares that states have the right to outlaw all forms of birth control. ~Rick Santorum, advocates for arresting doctors that provide crucial medical services to women. ~Rick Santorum, opposes contraception and frighteningly suggesting that he would make pre-marital sex illegal. AND “In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to. … What happened in America so that mothers and fathers who leave their children in the care of someone else — or worse yet, home alone after school between three and six in the afternoon — find themselves more affirmed by society? Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism.” (Santorum’s 2005 book, It Takes a Family: ) AND “Women are too emotional for combat …”

Elderly = ~Rick Santorum, supports the Paul Ryan plan to kill Medicare and Medicaid, and stating that he would end both programs right now.

Minorities = “The most dangerous place for an African-American in this country is in the womb.” ~Rick Santorum, claims that blacks are more threatened by abortion than they are by GOP economic policies that discriminate against them. AND “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” (Campaign stop in Iowa, Jan. 2, 2012)

Health Care = “Almost 60,000 average Americans had the courage to go out and charge those beaches on Normandy, to drop out of airplanes who knows where, and take on the battle for freedom. Average Americans, the very Americans that our government now, and this president, does not trust to make a decision on your health care plan. Those Americans risked everything so they could make that decision on their health care plan.” ~Rick Santorum, falsely claiming that WW2 veterans fought for the privatization of health care on D-Day, apparently oblivious to the fact that military health care is government run and a majority of WW2 veterans are currently using and enjoying Medicare.

Poor People = ~Rick Santorum, falsely claims that poverty was the lowest in history because of the Bush policies. In fact, poverty only increased.

Higher Education = “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college,” Santorum said in Michigan. “What a snob.” and “The idea is that the state doesn’t have rights to limit individuals’ wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire.” ~Rick Santorum, declares that government has the right to limit people from pursuing their dreams.

Immigrants = in December of 2011, Senator Santorum was interviewed on the PBS Show “Conversation with the Candidates.” He was asked about immigration and states that the US must be a nation of laws and we cannot grant amnesty to those already in the country while telling those who are coming here legally that they will get lesser treatment.

Evolution = “What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not.” ~Rick Santorum, claiming that evolution theory isn’t accurate.

Climate Science = ~Rick Santorum, claims that man-made CO2 is not responsible for climate change despite the fact that CO2 levels have doubled since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

EPA = Speaking to voters in Iowa Monday, January 2, 2012, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania ripped the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule placing first-ever limits on the amount of mercury that coal-fired power plants can emit into the air. AND Santyorum calls research linking humans to global warming “junk science” that is “patently absurd.” He once eloquently said that climate change is “a beautifully concocted scheme” that is “just an excuse for more government control of your life.” Santorum also plans to abolish the EPA and its “job-killing radical regulatory approaches,” subsequently repealing all Obama-era EPA regulations. He has stated that he wants to “refocus [the EPA’s] mission on safe and clean water and air and commonsense conservation.” However, Santorum has consistently voted against an increase in renewable energy and regulations for cleaner air. Santorum has also supported a limit increase on mercury emissions from power plants, pushing heavily for nuclear energy. He has stated his hope to “put aside our dreams of ‘green jobs,” believing that we should instead focus on the “great domestic resources at our disposal.” Santorum plans to eliminate all agriculture and energy subsidies within four years, thereby cutting subsidies for solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. He wants an “all of the above” energy policy, calling on the pursuit of oil, coal, natural gas, and anything else we can get our hands on – this would include drilling in his preferred location, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Santorum has, however, proposed scaling back on all “oppressive regulation” that prohibits drilling in other locations. AND about Fracking, “We have to have all sorts of government regulations because of the threats of hydrofracking,” Santorum said. “It’s the new boogey man. It’s the new way to try to scare you.” Later he imitated anti-fracking politicians and environmentalists. “Ooh, all this bad stuff’s going to happen, we don’t know all these chemicals and all this stuff,” he said. “What’s going to happen? Let me tell you what’s going to happen, nothing’s going to happen.” It’s not the first time Santorum has dismissed environmental threats as bogus rhetoric. At a campaign stop in Colorado on Tuesday, he told voters that he never bought into the “hoax of global warming.”

Social Security = “The Social Security system, in my opinion, is a flawed design, period. But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends. We don’t have enough workers to support the retirees . . . A third of the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion.“ ~Rick Santorum, blames abortion for future Social Security shortfalls when in fact, it’s Republican anti-job policies that are to blame.

Palestinians = “There are no Palestinians. All the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis. There are no Palestinians. This is Israeli land.” (Iowa November 18, 2011) ~Rick Santorum, falsely claiming that there are no Palestinians living on the West Bank.

Foreign Policy = ~Rick Santorum, critices President Obama for repairing US relations with France. And being ignorant of the fact that without the French, America wouldn’t be a free nation today. AND “I would be saying to the Iranians, you either open those facilities, begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors or we will degrade those facilities though air strikes. And make it very public that we are doing that. Iran would not get a nuclear weapon under my watch.”
~Rick Santorum, threatening war with Iran. and “I don’t want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business.”
~Rick Santorum, stating that he wants a war with China.

Other Religions = “I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,”AND “The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical.” ~Rick Santorum, claims Christians played no role in starting the Crusades. ~Rich Santorum says he almost threw up reading John Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religious tolerance, and the GOP presidential hopeful sees sinister intent in President Obama’s plea that young Americans seek higher education. So, what would a Santorum America be like?“Satan has his sights on the United States of America!” Santorum declared. “This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country.”

Four years ago, Santorum apparently was under the mistaken belief that the country was fighting a war not in Iraq, but on the shores of the River Styx. In a speech at Ava Maria University excerpted on Tuesday on the Drudge Report website, he warned that the Lord of Darkness was mustering his troops for an apocalyptic showdown with us rivaling anything ever seen in a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie.

Instead, the speech grinds on as Santorum warns of the “gathering storm” and draws parallels between our time and the late 1930s and early ’40s. Warning that America will face an array of exotic threats alone, Santorum begins to quote the June 1940 address of Winston Churchill to the British people in which the prime minister girded them for the coming battle of Britain. In the audio recording sold by Focus on the Family, as Santorum’s voice solemnly quiets, the ghostly crackle of Churchill’s original rises. Santorum closes by explaining that defeat means to “sink into the abyss of a new dark age.” Dobson emerges to speculate that this may be some of “the most prophetic work” his ministry has brought to its audience, saying, “Rick Santorum gets it. He may have been the finest senator we have had in many decades. He is part of the heritage of Winston Churchill.”

Santorum has been giving similar speeches wherever he can. To a standing room only crowd at the close of the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference, his talk was preceded by a PowerPoint presentation by David Horowitz of the Terrorism Awareness Project. Grainy photos of suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq flashed rapidly across the projection screen to a soundtrack ripped out of “Classical Thunder.” The lesson: nowhere do Palestinians or other Arabs work for simple political goals, such as land or national sovereignty. They wish solely for the destruction of Israel and the Great Satan. No event is discreet: each bombing from 1979 until today is connected, and appeasement is not an option. The words of radical clerics fill the screen, implying that Islam itself is the problem. One onlooker explained how this presentation “revived [his] dedication to this battle.”

Santorum amplifies these sentiments when he talks about the historic animus between Islam and Christendom. “We’re not going to solve the problem by just chasing down a few bad guys in Iraq. … We are in the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. This is not just a military conflict, it is an ideological conflict.” And confronting this menace means reaching beyond the war on terror. According to Santorum, the West must witness to Muslims, not for Christ but for Modernity. We must also, in order to have allies, re-evangelize Europe for Christianity, lest Europe die out and be replaced with “Euristan.” Santorum never explains exactly how the United States can begin transforming the spiritual and ideological culture of both Europe and the Middle East—he just knows that it is essential to America’s security.

As Santorum’s list of enemies has grown, so has his ambition. His role in the fight against America’s enemies is no longer confined to Washington D.C. “We have to fund and produce artifacts of the culture that communicate the message on a broad-based scheme. … If you wanted to win America,” he asks “would you rather have someone give a great political speech or have a movie in every theater across America?” Citing Michael Moore’s documentaries and movies like “Syriana,” Santorum has expressed interest in becoming a movie producer himself and has reportedly met with the producer of “The Passion of the Christ,” Steve McEveety. His film would center around three Iranian brothers, one of whom comes to the U.S. as a terrorist. Santorum insists, “It’s not real yet in the sense that we don’t have the money. But we’re working on it.” He hopes the film will be action-packed and entertaining while at the same time educational.

By making faraway fascists the top issue for families, Santorum’s struggle against Islamic fascism (and Latin American populism and Russia) has fused the two dominant strands of conservative politics: neoconservative foreign policy and traditionalist social policy. His credibility among social conservatives is the anvil on which hawks can forge an unbreakable war consensus with the base of the Republican Party.

Whereas each bloody headline from Iraq serves to chastise the American public and its political class, discouraging them from further interventionism, the effect is reversed on Santorum. Every roadside bomb demonstrates to him that powerful enemies outside Iraq are aligning for our destruction. Falling public support is further proof that Republicans have failed to explain the nature of the current struggle. His own defeat in last year’s election didn’t prompt him to rethink his crusade but to redouble it.

Santorum’s former colleagues draw other lessons from his defeat: you cannot win with the base alone. America does not want a new list of enemies or a mission to change the world. Nor does the country want “believers” who insist that we do.

SUFFER YE AMERICANS! Rick Santorum has definite opinions that cater to his adopted Tea Party agenda, but it appears that he has amplified the rhetoric. Don’t look at the contradictions. Don’t look at his biggest contributors in the oil and gas industry (who despise safety regulations). Don’t look at his outright distortions to History and Science. Don’t look at what he does or how he lives. If Colleges and Universities are indoctrinating students into a liberal agenda, why is this University educated lawyer, with 2 degrees, sending his children to college?

Picture me disgusted, the Grand Old Party needs to clean it’s litter box because it really stinks..